My wife likes to watch Antiques Road Show, so supper usually coincides with that program when it's on.
Last episode, Monday, I think, they had the original Santa and Rudolph puppets used in the filming, which a fella had brought in years ago. They ended up keeping track of them, and are now in a puppet museum in Alabama or Georgia(?) and supposedly worth one million dollars. They were restored somewhere along the line, but each time they changed hands they sold for bigger and bigger money, until the last buyer donated them to the museum.
The rationale behind the crazy "value" was that people like to buy back their history - their childhood, and the generation(s) who have watched the old Rankin Bass animation specials seems very fond of their memories.
Santa was missing half his mustache and Rudolph's nose wasn't so bright, but they have since been tuned up to look like new.
Yep, Yukon Cornelius was my favorite, Corcorans and all. The Bumble was second on my list. Funny how back then the underlying "tolerance and inclusion" message included a character like Yukon too. There are a lot of people ("old people" especially) who are not tolerated and are excluded in today's version of "tolerance and inclusion."